Bulgarian Competition Watchdog Fines Paint Maker Orgachim

The company was fined for holding a promotional campaign in the Black Sea town of Burgas in which it offered motorbikes as a prize to buyers of Orgachim products, the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) said in a statement.

The commission has found out that the value of the prize has exceeded substantially the legally binding limit of 100 times the price of the sold product, the statement said. The regulator fined Orgachim for a similar breach of law in October.

Orgachim officials were not immediately available to comment.

Orgachim, majority-owned by Maltese-registered Whitebeam Holdings Ltd, is the sole producer of anhydrides in Bulgaria and the biggest one on the Balkans. It is also the largest producer of plasticizers and alkyd resins in Bulgaria. More than 90% of the company's anhydride output is exported, generating 35 to 40 percent of its sales.

Orgachim, a blue chip on the Sofia bourse, has posted a 57% drop in its nine-month net profit to 4.4 million levs. Its net profit fell 16% to 6.76 million levs last year.

Orgachim (www.orgachim.bg) closed 3.76% higher at 83.00 levs on Wednesday.

(1 euro = 1.95583 Bulgarian levs)